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Finding Empathy In Historical Inquiry And Data Management Through An Educational Research Example, Bo Chang

The Qualitative Report

In historical inquiry, researchers identify the research questions, specify the domain which relates to the research questions, and familiarize themselves with how the documents are structured and managed in the host library. In collecting data, researchers don’t need to constrain themselves with how documents are labeled by the archivists. They can break the boundaries of the labeled documents and find out how seemingly unrelated documents are actually inter-related. In analyzing data, positivists and constructionists view history differently, which results in different approaches to how historical data can be analyzed. Positivists believe in transparency and universal truths across the historical data …